Shipping Oona and O-Chul <3

[Elkins]

In fairness, looking back at the beginning of the linked topic, it seems the majority of people who contributed to the discussion had got Tarquin more or less right.

Just to clarify, I was remembering the entire body of reader response to Tarquin acting like control freaks tend to act when they feel they're losing control, not just the specific thread Kish linked. I agree with Mightymosy that in that particular thread, Rich waxed hyperbolic in places, presumably out of some not-inconsiderable degree of authorial frustration. I get where he was coming from, but looking back on the conversation from our later vantage point, it does weaken his argument. (Which is just one reason why it's a very good thing that an author's real argument is the work itself, not some stuff typed up in irritation and on impulse on some forum one day.)

As someone who has fairly recently just read through that period of reader response, though, as it emerged both on these forums and other places (some people archive binge; I binge on contemporary reader responses to serialized fiction), it did seem to me that there was an awful lot of "Tarquin's acting out of character!" claims that revealed...well, a certain lack of experience with pathological narcissists and their control issues, I guess? To me, his behavior was perfectly consistent with everything that had been established about his character up to that point, so it was hard for me not to imagine that reader resistance as a case of the readers themselves getting sucked into orbit around a character's considerable charisma.

Of course, there's always something more going on when readers suddenly balk like that, just as there's something that causes fans to "ship" certain characters more than others.

[Ruck]

At any rate, Malack praises Tarquin's strategical finesse when he murders Durkon.

Attrition is the opposite of finesse. It could easily be argued that Malack was snarking about Tarquin's tendency to just throw massive amounts of troops at his problems until he wins.

And while Miron and Laurin complain about Tarquin's decision to use his/their resources for a goal stupid in their eyes, they hardly complain about his lack of strategical insight or competence. When Miron complains about Tarquin's focus on "story stuff", Tarquin replies that this had put a lot of money into Miron's purse, so he arguably wins that argument.

Except that the current situation won't put any money in their pockets, it's just Tarquin trying to play puppet-master to his son for personal reasons.

One final note: It had been said that Tarquin was, on a "meta-level", wrong because he assumed that the story was about him, and thus he had to fail.
Well guess what? He was right. At least for the audience. Make a poll in this forum and ask people who they associate BritF with. I'm willing to bet 50$ that Tarquin will come atop - sure, Durkon had that tragic death scene, but Tarquin caused much more forum arousal, if I remember right. Because Tarquin was such a protruding character.

But BRitF isn't the story. The entirety of the Order of the Stick series is the story. Tarquin is the main villain of BRitF, but a side quest to the main story. He believes he is the main villain of the story, and that the story is about Elan's quest to topple his empire, not about Roy's quest to defeat Xykon.

[Mightymosy]

Attrition is the opposite of finesse. It could easily be argued that Malack was snarking about Tarquin's tendency to just throw massive amounts of troops at his problems until he wins.

If your resources are endless while your opponent's resources are not, attrition is a valid path to victory.
Which Malack mentions in regard to his vampire abilities he can use how often he wants compared to Durkon's spells which will run out.
Which Malack then did and proceeded to win that battle, with a grapping technique he learned from....guess who! TARQUIN!

Sure you can twist it all the way around and say that it was intended differently, and in the end Malack had meant to tell us that Tarquin sucked as a general, but I find that awfully hard to deduct from the comic.

Tarquin may not be the omnipotent chessmaster he likes to present himself as, but from the perspective of the reader, or the Oots for that matter, he is as powerful an antagonist as it gets.

Apart from the fights he directly shows prowess in, he also has enormous power as his position in the current empire, with that scheme his team is using.
Even if he overstates his own role a little (and which father doesn't like to show off to his long lost son a little??) he shares ownership of a huge part of a continent with his 5 allies. That is some chunk.
Are we supposed to think this is all hyperbole and lies by Tarquin? Well, then why are we shown again and again that every f*cking person basically acts the way he wants, until the end of his story arc where one of his allies reluctantly is forced to retreat from battle and his other ally willfully retreats from a battle she cannot hope to win anymore?

Tarquin is an evil man of power. Sure, he fakes some of it ("I think I'll start implying it was my plan all along"), but he also has a lot to back himself up. This mixture is what makes him so dangerous if you ask me.

Except that the current situation won't put any money in their pockets, it's just Tarquin trying to play puppet-master to his son for personal reasons.

So what?
I conceded that Miron and Laurin didn't concur with the personal aims Tarquin has at that moment, but they don't say he is a bad strategist or fighter.
Tarquin reminded Miron of his value due to being "story-proficient", to which Miron had no reply.

But BRitF isn't the story. The entirety of the Order of the Stick series is the story. Tarquin is the main villain of BRitF, but a side quest to the main story. He believes he is the main villain of the story, and that the story is about Elan's quest to topple his empire, not about Roy's quest to defeat Xykon.

And this is the point I either don't get, or find waaay to meta for my taste - depends on how Rich Burlew actually intended it.

How was Tarquin defeated (or at least set back - I assume he still has his part of his empire)?
Team OotS threw all they had against him, and with the help of cavalry (fittingly called by Elan), they managed to barely fend him off for the time being.
On his side? Well, tough to say without going into full-blown D&D combat strategy analysis, but for a non D&D player, it looked like he wanted to much, too fast, in the end. As his resources (Team Nale, his soldiers, and finally his Vector allies) were finally dwindled down, he maybe should have chosen to back up and regroup, but at that point he had tunnel vision and tried to force through his view of what the story should be like.
And honestly? Although he didn't achieve his stated objective (killing Roy to make Elan protagonist), he managed to become the primary antagonist of Book 5 - which he wouldn't have been if he did otherwise.

That part about him misinterpretating his role in the whole comic? Well, if he sits on Rich Burlews shoulder and whispers in his ears, maybe, if you really want, make that meta argument. But I certainly read differently from the story.

[Kish]

I think you misunderstand Tarquin.

The resources you talk about, that he still has, simply don't matter to him anywhere near as much as 4) his intact borderline-epic adventuring party, 3) two major supporting characterssons, 2) control over his remaining son, and 1) his ego. All four of those were damaged. He lost because his implication that he could reframe his goal to declare victory was always asterisks, because there was fragility where he tried to pretend there was might: He had to get exactly what he wanted, his ego regarded "he's not leaving exactly the way you wanted him to" as a loss.

(Also, "as powerful an antagonist as it gets"? Hi, I'd like to introduce you to this lich called Xykon. And for that matter this vampire dwarf named Greg. Tarquin is probably a little more powerful than Redcloak alone...maybe...)

[Keltest]

I think you misunderstand Tarquin.

The resources you talk about, that he still has, simply don't matter to him anywhere near as much as 4) his intact borderline-epic adventuring party, 3) two major supporting characterssons, 2) control over his remaining son, and 1) his ego. All four of those were damaged.

(Also, "as powerful an antagonist as it gets"? Hi, I'd like to introduce you to this lich called Xykon. And for that matter this vampire dwarf named Greg. Tarquin is probably a little more powerful than Redcloak alone...maybe...)

Well sure, if you discount the massive political and military resources at his disposal, Tarquin doesn't look as dangerous as Xykon. But until Xykon finds and captures or destroys the last gate, I would not hesitate to say that the resources Tarquin can potentially bring to bare against the Order vastly overshadow Xykon as a danger. Tarquin wont do so, because he's a loon, but he could.

[Ruck]

If your resources are endless while your opponent's resources are not, attrition is a valid path to victory.
Which Malack mentions in regard to his vampire abilities he can use how often he wants compared to Durkon's spells which will run out.
Which Malack then did and proceeded to win that battle, with a grapping technique he learned from....guess who! TARQUIN!

None of which addresses my actual words. Attrition is the opposite of finesse.

Sure you can twist it all the way around and say that it was intended differently, and in the end Malack had meant to tell us that Tarquin sucked as a general, but I find that awfully hard to deduct from the comic.

Considering Malack refers to Tarquin as a "fool" just a couple of strips beforehand, I don't think I'm twisting anything all the way around.

Are we supposed to think this is all hyperbole and lies by Tarquin? Well, then why are we shown again and again that every f*cking person basically acts the way he wants, until the end of his story arc where one of his allies reluctantly is forced to retreat from battle and his other ally willfully retreats from a battle she cannot hope to win anymore?

Maybe you should read some of the author's comments on Tarquin.

So what?

So, "You never complain about my story stuff when it puts money in your pocket" is pretty easily countered with "This will not put money in our pocket."

I conceded that Miron and Laurin didn't concur with the personal aims Tarquin has at that moment, but they don't say he is a bad strategist or fighter.
Tarquin reminded Miron of his value due to being "story-proficient", to which Miron had no reply.

His reply was to refuse to help until Tarquin called in his favor; Miron and Laurin's reactions to that decision suggest that they consider this matter well below the level of seriousness required to cash in such an apparently valuable token.

And this is the point I either don't get, or find waaay to meta for my taste - depends on how Rich Burlew actually intended it.

How was Tarquin defeated (or at least set back - I assume he still has his part of his empire)?
Team OotS threw all they had against him, and with the help of cavalry (fittingly called by Elan), they managed to barely fend him off for the time being.
On his side? Well, tough to say without going into full-blown D&D combat strategy analysis, but for a non D&D player, it looked like he wanted to much, too fast, in the end. As his resources (Team Nale, his soldiers, and finally his Vector allies) were finally dwindled down, he maybe should have chosen to back up and regroup, but at that point he had tunnel vision and tried to force through his view of what the story should be like.
And honestly? Although he didn't achieve his stated objective (killing Roy to make Elan protagonist), he managed to become the primary antagonist of Book 5 - which he wouldn't have been if he did otherwise.

That part about him misinterpretating his role in the whole comic? Well, if he sits on Rich Burlews shoulder and whispers in his ears, maybe, if you really want, make that meta argument. But I certainly read differently from the story.

You don't seem to have understood anything I wrote. Tarquin believes he is the main antagonist in the story being told, to the point where he resorts to increasingly desperate measures to try to enforce this, but since he's not in the role he thinks he's in, those methods fail.

What does anything you wrote have to do with that?

[Kish]

Looking at the part about everyone doing exactly what he wanted, I'd just like to ask: Who, exactly, did what he wanted?

Did he want Nale to destroy Malack? Did he want Gannji and Enor to survive (in terms of what was actually demonstrated by his actions, not his yelling after them those grapes were sour anyway)? Did he want Amun-Zora to try to kill him? Did he want Nale to free Amun-Zora? Did he want Nale to flatly refuse to be reintegrated into his role as a lackey for the Vector Legion? Did he want Ian Starshine, Amun-Zora, Gannji, and Enor to form a resistance movement? Did he, in short, get anyone to do what he wanted that they didn't want to do with anything other than brute force (except Malack, who got destroyed for going along with him)? Yes, he has a big brutal obedient army. Here he comes, warlord-man, does whatever a warlord can.

[Mightymosy]

Looking at the part about everyone doing exactly what he wanted, I'd just like to ask: Who, exactly, did what he wanted?

Did he want Nale to destroy Malack? Did he want Gannji and Enor to survive (in terms of what was actually demonstrated by his actions, not his yelling after them those grapes were sour anyway)? Did he want Amun-Zora to try to kill him? Did he want Nale to free Amun-Zora? Did he want Nale to flatly refuse to be reintegrated into his role as a lackey for the Vector Legion? Did he want Ian Starshine, Amun-Zora, Gannji, and Enor to form a resistance movement? Did he, in short, get anyone to do what he wanted that they didn't want to do with anything other than brute force (except Malack, who got destroyed for going along with him)? Yes, he has a big brutal obedient army. Here he comes, warlord-man, does whatever a warlord can.

So I should have been more specific: He rules a big empire where a vast majoritiy of people do what he says due to fear of him.
Better?

Still, I say that this means he is pretty powerful. Evil and powerful.

With people not quite belonging to his personell, he is good at "reframing", as I pointed out above. So he makes it hard to properly judge him: Some of what he says is true, some is exaggerated, hard to tell, especially for the people who fear him.


Now to really judge his success we would need to know his personal primary objective.
We don't know his thoughts, but for me this was always the scene on the rooftop:
"Live like a king or die like a legend".
And in the end, so far stuff breaks his way so that this happens.
He is, in eyes of many, a legendary antagonist, and we have to assume that at the moment he still gets to live like a king.

You could make the argument that this is still him reframing his story, but he is rich and powerful right now, and many people would count that as objective sucess (although evil).


Losing Malack was certainly something he didn't want, though, and see how he goes mad after that - he did lose something, the question is how much? Given the coldhearted bastard he is.

[Mightymosy]

...



You don't seem to have understood anything I wrote. Tarquin believes he is the main antagonist in the story being told, to the point where he resorts to increasingly desperate measures to try to enforce this, but since he's not in the role he thinks he's in, those methods fail.

What does anything you wrote have to do with that?

Maybe I don't understand anything you wrote and vice versa. Maybe I also don't understand the character Tarquin the way Rich Burlew intended him to be, at least not completely. Which was my point. I can see why and how many people didn't see it the way you both appearantly do, and supposedly was the way intended by the author.
It is, for, just not quite like that when I read the story - too much is implicated.


One more thing: How the hell is Tarquin supposed to become the main antagonist? Rich Burlew imagines everything, including Tarquin. So the argument that Tarquin is failing because he thinks he is the main antagonist while he isn't, just doesn't make sense to me. Either I believe that slashing an enemy will harm them or it won't. By that logic, Roy shouldn't have attacked Xykon at all yet, because it isn't the last page of the comic yet.
I thought we are supposed not to rely on that "Elan" logic when considering the serious storyline, or what was that recent comic about where Roy told Elan that Banjo was just a puppet?

[KorvinStarmast]

Doesn't O-Chul deserve happiness after everything he's been through?!?

Why is happiness assumed to require a 'ship?

[Darth Paul]

Maybe I don't understand anything you wrote and vice versa. Maybe I also don't understand the character Tarquin the way Rich Burlew intended him to be, at least not completely. Which was my point. I can see why and how many people didn't see it the way you both appearantly do, and supposedly was the way intended by the author.
It is, for, just not quite like that when I read the story - too much is implicated.


One more thing: How the hell is Tarquin supposed to become the main antagonist? Rich Burlew imagines everything, including Tarquin. So the argument that Tarquin is failing because he thinks he is the main antagonist while he isn't, just doesn't make sense to me. Either I believe that slashing an enemy will harm them or it won't. By that logic, Roy shouldn't have attacked Xykon at all yet, because it isn't the last page of the comic yet.
I thought we are supposed not to rely on that "Elan" logic when considering the serious storyline, or what was that recent comic about where Roy told Elan that Banjo was just a puppet?

Tarquin was the main antagonist of the Empire of Blood/ BRitF story arc. No argument with that.

Where Tarquin goes wrong is in thinking that he's the main antagonist of the ENTIRE OOTS PLOT. I can't track down the comic at this moment, but he refers to Xykon as a "side-boss", rather than recognize he's the primary threat to the entire planet. Julio sums it up nicely- T thinks that everything that happens is about him.

The difference between Elan and Tarquin is that Elan realizes, deep down, that he's the comic relief, and that story logic doesn't always work; Tarquin uses the same logic not for comic purposes but to rule countries. It's effective in the short term, but as we see, it doesn't work when people refuse to play by the rules of the story- or when someone like Elan is better at it.

[137beth]

Even though i know what to expect, I'm always amazed at how far people will contort a character's personality to fit a shipping.

I'm going to assume both Oona and O-Chul are aromantic ace until shown evidence to the contrary.

[Keltest]

I'm going to assume both Oona and O-Chul are aromantic ace until shown evidence to the contrary.

O-chul is very romantic. He's married to his work.

[Kish]

So I should have been more specific: He rules a big empire where a vast majoritiy of people do what he says due to fear of him.
Better?

Still, I say that this means he is pretty powerful. Evil and powerful.

Sure. He's a borderline-epic adventurer. Roy Greenhilt is really powerful, and by the standards of most of the world he lives in, ridiculously rich.

Beyond that, we apparently disagree on whether it's possible to figure out what Tarquin actually cares about from reading the scenes where he freaks out about being denied. Yes, he looks like he's winning if you hyper-focus on one early scene (which is part of the same scene that features a strip actually called "Spins of the Father") where he is making a point of projecting smug invulnerability, and ignore the later ones where he made it clear his smug invulnerability was never real.

[Darth Paul]

"Live like a king or die like a legend".
And in the end, so far stuff breaks his way so that this happens.

But he doesn't die like a legend. And we have insufficient information on whether he'll still live like a king, after all the resources he threw into his pursuit of Elan, and given that there's now an active and probably effective resistance afoot.

"You'll live." Which is the worst thing that can happen, from Tarquin's point of view- his son neither joins him, nor overthrows him. He just- ignores him, in the end. That's not how the story's supposed to end!

[Mightymosy]

Sure. He's a borderline-epic adventurer. Roy Greenhilt is really powerful, and by the standards of most of the world he lives in, ridiculously rich.

Beyond that, we apparently disagree on whether it's possible to figure out what Tarquin actually cares about from reading the scenes where he freaks out about being denied. Yes, he looks like he's winning if you hyper-focus on one early scene (which is part of the same scene that features a strip actually called "Spins of the Father") where he is making a point of projecting smug invulnerability, and ignore the later ones where he made it clear his smug invulnerability was never real.

Oh, then we misunderstood. I never meant to say that Tarquin did not freak out because he has been denied.
I think one of Tarquin's major character inconsistencies (read: flaw, don't read: mispresentation by author) is that he tells Nale to keep a low profile and not to be bothered by what other people think, but in the end he goes completely out of his way to make sure Elan (or the story structure or whatever) doesn't deny him.

I don't think we disagress there. Let's see about the other things, the ones I was having problems with understanding, or at least being puzzled by what Rich Burlew wrote about it.

1. I just don't get why I should see Tarquin as an incompetent warrior or ruler (apart from being evil to the core, of course, which actually is a major flaw).
Tarquin is a deeply emotionally flawed character. The problem is that he is also a vastly powerful (physical and political) deeply emotionally flawed character.
- if we were supposed to view Tarquin as an incompetent warrior, why is he painted singlehandedly thrashing 5/6 of OotS?
- if we were supposed to view Tarquin as an incompetent schemer, why are we given evidence that the schemings of his team have worked for a couple iterations already, with a vast majority of the shown populace submitting to his oppressive rule, and as of yet not been overthrown?
So far we haven't seen any evidence that his stated "masterplan" (live like a king until the last few minutes) is not working out.

2. This whole thing about him misinterpreting his role in the story.
I have thought about this long on my way to work ().
Let's hear what you people think! What should he have done to reach his goals?
- strictly speaking, he couldn't do anything differently. Because the same absolute ruler that guides his actions also decides who is the primary antagonist of the story.
- apart from that, right now we are not even sure who will be the final antagonist. Although Xykon is probably the best bet, Recloak is a close second for me and others, while Snarl, Hel, and IFCC being more contenders.
- but even if Tarquin was somehow an independent person inside the storyline-universe Rich Burlew created inside his maginificent head, and Tarquin decided he wanted to be primary antagonist, how should he have gone about this, what do you people think?

[Mightymosy]

But he doesn't die like a legend. And we have insufficient information on whether he'll still live like a king, after all the resources he threw into his pursuit of Elan, and given that there's now an active and probably effective resistance afoot.

"You'll live." Which is the worst thing that can happen, from Tarquin's point of view- his son neither joins him, nor overthrows him. He just- ignores him, in the end. That's not how the story's supposed to end!

He is being teleported back to his palace. Other than that, we don't know what happens. But since he lost "his" army for several occasions prior, the default assumption would be that this time won't hinder him much either.

While I agree that Elan's "You'll live" is a huge sting into Tarquin geniously done by Elan, it is not the end of the story.
There is a resistance that may succeed in overthrowing him at some point, and maybe that time it will be somehow painted in a way that Tarquin will not seem super-cool to a lot of people, but it just hasn't happened in comic yet.

And Elan does NOT ignore Tarquin. He tries to find a way to oppose him in a way that does not involve a climactic duel on his palace's doorsteps.

[Kish]

I think his goal is something like "total uncontested control over as large an area as possible and all the people in it."

Fundamentally, he can't have that. The person who comes closest is Xykon, and Xykon gets as close as he does partly because he's more powerful than Tarquin, but mainly because he doesn't care about control, only about obedience when he wants it. Redcloak and the hobgoblins can have a ceremony and declare the city Xykon is unliving in Gobbotopia without acknowledging that Xykon exists at all, and Xykon doesn't mind in the least, as long as no one's going to tell him he can't choke the new Prime Minister if he gets annoyed.

The biggest difference between Tarquin and Nale was that Nale was more honest. Nale said "No one denies me!" He was essentially permanently emotionally fixed at 13, but he acknowledged it, and set out to try to make the world treat him like he was as important as he thought he should be. Tarquin...is permanently emotionally fixed at 13 and doesn't acknowledge it. So he lectures Nale on being petty even while he tries to grind bounty hunters under his feet for daring to try to joke with him.

His mental snare for Elan, whether it's still working or not, only worked for a few seconds because of Elan's awful Intelligence. If he'd tried that on a son who was an intelligent bard, Elan's immediate response could have gone, "You get to be a legend? Really? 'Cause I'm going to be the one telling the story of your defeat, or rather the defeat of the Empress of Blood; don't be too much of an ass and I might work in a footnote about her comic jester Tarquin."

[Elkins]

One more thing: How the hell is Tarquin supposed to become the main antagonist?

Well, he's not supposed to, nor is he in any way entitled to, which is rather the point. Nobody gets to declare themselves the focus of the entire universe, and no sane person would even think to consider it a significant "failure" when the world--including all of the other people in it--turns out somehow not to revolve around them. Only someone as fundamentally narcissistic as Tarquin would ever even think to expect such a thing.

Rich Burlew imagines everything, imagines everything, including Tarquin. So the argument that Tarquin is failing because he thinks he is the main antagonist while he isn't, just doesn't make sense to me.

Okay, I'm not sure that I am parsing this correctly, so please forgive me if I get it wrong. It sounds to me as if you're objecting that it is unfair to judge a character for his considerable solipsism because if only the author had been interested in writing a story about a completely solipsistic universe centered around said character, then he would have been absolutely correct in his belief that the world really does revolve around him! Which...is true, I guess, but sort of beside the point, I think? Generally speaking, I don't think that most people's real problem with solipsism has much to do with their belief that solipsists are factually mistaken. I mean, the metafictional aspect of the story is being used here to set up, among other things, an elaborate extended metaphor about narcissism and the ways in which our internalization of narrative convention has the potential to lead us into some pretty ugly territory. So there was never going to be a situation in which a character correctly identifies his status as a main character of the story and is consequently acknowledged by the narrative as totally justified in treating other people like fictive elements, denying them the dignity and consideration due to equal and independent sapient agents. Right? That was simply never going to happen.

After all, if this story has a main protagonist, then that protagonist is Roy, and Roy has on more than one occasion been taken to task for behaving as if he thinks everything is "all about him." And quite rightly, too, because behaving as if other people are merely there to serve supporting roles to ones own primary protagonism (or, well, primary antagonism, I guess, in Tarquin's case) is not objectionable merely because one might turn out to be mistaken about ones status on some technical metafictional level. It's objectionable behavior because there are absolutely no circumstances under which it is ever not utterly mistaken on an even more fundamental moral and philosophical level.

Let's hear what you people think! What should he have done to reach his goals?

Seriously?

Nothing.

There is nothing that he could have done to control the narrative in the way that he wanted to control it. Tarquin's "failure" isn't that he somehow overlooked some magic strategy that would have enabled him to control everything and everyone he encounters. His failure is his belief that such a thing could or should even exist. His failure is his complete inability to recognize or to accept that he doesn't get to control the entire universe, because the universe is not in fact a giant mirror that exists only to reflect his own swollen ego right back at him.

Tarquin fails to control the narrative, ultimately, because he is not a god but merely a man, and even in a metafictional universe that floats on a sea of narrative convention, men do not have the power to control every last aspect of the reality surrounding them. That's just a fact of life, and not one that sane people tend to question all that much. There are, however, some people who do find that fact of life unusually difficult to come to terms with, people who are sufficiently disordered in their thinking as to believe that they should be able to exert that level of control, often because on some fundamental level, they really do view the world and all the people in it as little more than a set of glorified mirrors to themselves. That Tarquin is in fact just such a narcissistic personality is something the story took a great deal of time and care to set up during the early parts of the desert arc.

I mean, the metaphor being laid out here isn't exactly subtle. Tarquin refuses to acknowledge a narrative that does not exalt his ego in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons that his reaction to a married woman who says she doesn't want to wed and bed him is to murder her real husband and plan to torture her into compliance. Which is also exactly the same way that his reaction to a populace that may not always want to obey him is to establish a brutal tyranny complete with secret police to crush them into compliance (even to the extent of having them honor him with spurious "Father of the Year" awards!). Which is also exactly the same way that his reaction to a son who does not want to meet his parental expectations is first to attempt to corner him strategically into compliance and then, when it finally becomes clear to him that he's never going to succeed at that, simply to remove him altogether, so that Tarquin no longer even has to acknowledge the existence of such an unacceptably non-Tarquin-exalting narrative.

That is Tarquin's character. That is who he is, and who he was carefully established to be all throughout the early part of the desert arc so that once things start falling apart for him later on, the reader can (ideally) understand what's going on. The metafictional aspect of the story--which I think you implied earlier in this thread that you sometimes find troublesome or problematic?--in no way opposes that characterization. Rather, it reinforces it by straight-up, outright, blatantly--downright brazenly, in fact--literalizing the metaphor of the man who refuses to recognize any story but his own.

(Or even more specifically, given that this entire arc takes place in the context of Elan's development, it's the metaphor of the father who refuses to recognize his son's story as separate from his own, which is hardly an uncommon family dynamic. Especially not in this story, which does tend to revisit and ring the changes on that dynamic rather frequently. Roy the Fighter gets the more straightforward and realistic treatment of that family drama, while Elan the Bard's character lends itself more to the more melodramatic metaphor-made-flesh version, complete with lots of colorful pomo sprinkles on top.)

But let's be clear: Tarquin never had any chance of "succeeding" at his goal of being the brilliant sun around which the rest of the world and all of its people and narrative conventions must orbit, or of being the only real person in a world of endlessly reflective and always flattering mirrors. That's not a failure that requires any particularly severe degree of authorial intervention to enforce; it's a failure that is inherent to the narcissistic world view from the very start.

[Ruck]

I still don't really understand what you wrote in response to me, but from what I can tell others have answered it better anyway, particularly Elkins. Instead, I just wanted to look at this:

Oh, then we misunderstood. I never meant to say that Tarquin did not freak out because he has been denied.
I think one of Tarquin's major character inconsistencies (read: flaw, don't read: mispresentation by author) is that he tells Nale to keep a low profile and not to be bothered by what other people think, but in the end he goes completely out of his way to make sure Elan (or the story structure or whatever) doesn't deny him.

I think this is because Tarquin is fine with keeping a low profile as long as everything is going the way he expects it to, but as soon as that stops being the case, he freaks out. It is a flaw-- he's a complete control freak who thinks the world revolves around him, and that his knowledge of storytelling is enough to enforce that.

[Kish]

That was awesome and brilliant, Elkins.

I do note that some of Tarquin's most extreme fans seem to have disappeared from the board entirely since Book 5 ended. I really wonder how many people were actually, for a little while, reading the comic strictly to see how a brilliant, always-perfectly-prepared "villain" demonstrated how limiting and invalid the alignment system is.

[137beth]

<One of the most amazing posts about Tarquin I have ever read>

Do you mind if I put this entire post in my extended signature?

[mouser9169]

And this is the point I either don't get, or find waaay to meta for my taste - depends on how Rich Burlew actually intended it.

<snip>

That part about him misinterpretating his role in the whole comic? Well, if he sits on Rich Burlews shoulder and whispers in his ears, maybe, if you really want, make that meta argument. But I certainly read differently from the story.

Regarding Tarquin: He is a kamidere. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have the power of a Haruhi-chan, so he crumbles when his perceptions and reality no longer mesh.

Tarquin rises to power precisely because he lives in a universe where his 'story nonsense' actually works. His power comes from understanding the 'meta' inherent in the laws of the Stick-Verse.

Oona may appear to have similar traits, but unlike Tarquin, will change when she comes up against someone who will force her perceptions to change. As an example, she is capable of perceiving the strength of the 'bony man' and formulates a best course of action to accompany them to help protect her interests rather than pretending that she somehow controls Xykon and co.

Why is happiness assumed to require a 'ship?

At some point the story will be over. O-Chul should be happily retired with a little Stiffly-kun running around the yard, perhaps playing at swordplay with Greenhilt-chan.

For Oona and O-Chul? No - Oona is happy to feed humans to a monster as a treat, this goes against O-Chul's understood definations of acceptable.

Yes, she was willing to feed humans to a 'beast', but only because she misunderstood (in a charming and lovable way) MitD's statement that he 'liked' a human back in Gobbotopia.

[Lombard]

Methinks I see a number of people writing off Tarquin when he's still alive and kicking and in control of significant resources. Why so convinced that Tarquin is going to curl into the fetal position at the thought of not being the main antagonist, instead of digging deep and finding a whole new level of heeldom to rise to? He's been complacent, resting on his evil laurels, for so long. This could be the career-capping narrative challenge that he realizes he's been secretly longing for for years, the Villain Viagra that makes him feel like a young knave again, when nothing seemed impossible and the world was his to despoil!

#evilpeptalk

[137beth]

Why is happiness assumed to require a 'ship?

At some point the story will be over. O-Chul should be happily retired with a little Stiffly-kun running around the yard, perhaps playing at swordplay with Greenhilt-chan.

Just to be clear, are you seriously asserting that a "happy ending" for any given character necessitates that character being in a romantic and/or sexual relationship and having a kid?

I fundamentally reject that assertion (if it is the assertion you are making.)

[Ruck]

I really don't know if this thread is entirely sarcasm, or if the massive number of assumptions needed to make OP's arguments make sense are part and parcel with how "shipping" work.

[Murk]

I really don't know if this thread is entirely sarcasm, or if the massive number of assumptions needed to make OP's arguments make sense are part and parcel with how "shipping" work.

As far as my meagre internet knowledge tells me, shipping doesn't require any actual arguments. You could ship O-Chul with his sword, if you wanted to, and Oona with, erm, the explosions dwarf from the inn storyline.

I think most shippers use a randomised character table and then throw two D20's.


So, seeing how these two are shipped with actual people that might possibly meet, I think we've got a relatively solid ship here.

[Peelee]

As far as my meagre internet knowledge tells me, shipping doesn't require any actual arguments. You could ship O-Chul with his sword, if you wanted to

And it would make more sense than with Oona. At least O-Chul actually likes his sword.

[dancrilis]

And it would make more sense than with Oona. At least O-Chul actually likes his sword.

It did go with Miko that one time to destroy the gate he was sworn to protect ... since than he does not seem to have a sword anymore (he took Lien's spear after they were attacked by Oona), he might he having difficulty moving on to a new sword after what he might see as a betrayal.

[Peelee]

Possibly. I do think that he and the spear are just friends.